Halloween Horror

…. so our Halloween House party was a week ago, but it’s taken me that long to recover from the 5.30 am bedtime on Sunday morning, and therefore this post is a little behind schedule. Nevertheless, I hope this gives you some inspiration for Halloween 2013.

Not one to do things half-arsed, when it comes to costumes, I have an all or nothing attitude. Actually, come to think of it, I have an all or nothing attitude in general, it’s quite an exhausting way to live haha!

I decided this year I would be super scary. The plan started out with the idea of being a Harajuku zombie, but quickly evolved to being a zombie nurse. Costume picked, I realised I had zero idea on how to do make up to complete the look. Cue: YouTube. Honestly, that website is the King of Tutorials, it’s amazing what you can learn on there! Searching for zombie make up tutorials, I came across a lesson on how to create a zipper face, where it looks like your skin is being unzipped. It’s all very ‘horror movie’, and I could not believe how easy it was to create this look. After watching numerous zipper face videos, and tutorials on how to make it look like you’re skin is ripping apart, I was so wound up with excitement, I felt like I was a kid again, not being able to sleep on Christmas Eve in anticipation of the big day ahead.

November 3rd rolled around, and I was slightly anxious that I might fail miserably at pulling this whole look off. I’d renamed my costume, I was no longer just a zombie nurse, I was now a cosmetic surgery zombie nurse. It seemed more appropriate with the look I was going for.

I started out on my hair, honestly it’s the most tedious job ever to create an afro when you have as much hair as I do! If you want to copy this look, it’s really very simple. You take very small sections of hair, making each one slightly damp with water, roll up a large tissue, and wrap your hair around it, securing it at the scalp by tying the tissue together. Get comfortable, as it takes FOREVER!!! You need to leave your hair like that for a good couple of hours, blasting it with the hair dryer every so often. A few hours later, you unravel it all, which is the most tedious part of all. You end up with a hair full of ringlets, which you shake out, backcomb and tease out. Voila! BIG HAIR.

Hair done, I started on my ‘open chest wound’. This involved smearing liquid latex onto my chest, sticking little pieces of toilet paper on, and repeating that process around 8 times. Kinda like paper mache. Covering it in foundation, and then smudging an outline around it using black and brown eyeshadow, it’s all a bit of trial and error, using the shadows, and black and red cream face paint, to make it look realistic. After the liquid latex had dried, I tore open the centre to make it look like my skin was ripping apart, squirted some fake blood around it, and stuck a fake syringe in the centre to really go to town with the whole look!

I did the same thing on my arms and legs to create wounds.

The zipper face was a similar process. Sticking the zip down with liquid latex and covering the fabric with make up, I built fake skin using the latex/toilet paper process, covered it with foundation and powdered, waited for it to dry (you can speed up the process by blasting your face with the hairdryer), and then slowly peeling it away from my real skin. Covering my real skin with the red and black cream face paint, and finally with fake blood, I was beginning to look hideous. Result!

Lastly, I tried contact lenses for the first time. I will not repeat the words that were coming out of my mouth trying to get those things in, it was the most difficult part of the whole process! But I persevered, and was glad I did, as the white out contacts completed the whole look.

Most people at the party were disgusted, and kept saying things like ‘You look horrible!’, and ‘I can’t look at you!’. Under any other circumstance I would have been mortified, but these were the exact comments I was looking for. It meant my costume was a success, yippee!!

So here are some photos, and I warn you, it’s probably best not to look at them if you are eating, you hate the sight of blood, you hate horror movies, or you easily have nightmares. DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU!…..